


Fake Smiles

by Grxffxn_Txler



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Depression, Friends to Lovers, Gay Keith (Voltron), LGBTQ Character, M/M, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Social Anxiety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 10:10:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16282649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grxffxn_Txler/pseuds/Grxffxn_Txler
Summary: Keith has been depressed for as long as he can remember, there no memeory he can find where he wasn't faking his emotions, or at least lyig about why he was like that. That didn't change when he started highchool. He laughed, smiled spoke like any other normal teenager. He watched TV, listened to music, hated school, these are all thigs you come to expect from any other teen, but things were just a bit different for Keith. He did his best to just blend in to the background, hoping his brother, Shiro, wouldn't notice how dark his mind has gone.Lance, however, seemed to be the polar opposite. He was popular, one of the most outgoing people you will ever meet, and dating the hotest girl in school, who just so happens to be in he same cheerleading team as Keith. Under it all, though, there was something very different going on, there are secrets he never wanted anyone to find out about him, and lies he told since day one.Not everything is as it seems.





	1. Chapter 1

Keith's POV 

Back to another day of hell. That's the only thought I could even comprehend for the first day back to school. I don't get why we have to even go at this point, we don't learn anything new and the only thig it did was give me some serious social anxiety. And that was putting it lightly. 

"Shiro, I'm off, I'll meet you and Adam at school!" I called up the stairs to my brother, he was probably still getting dressed, he hadn't seen his boyfriend for a week and wabted to look his best. I almost wish I knew what something like that was like, getting ready to impress someone you love. I don't think I've ever done that. I've never needed to.

"'Kay, please be safe! I love you!" He yelled back down to me, I quickly replied with,  
"Love you too." With that, I pushed the headphones into my ears, pressing suffle on spotify. I left my home, dragging my bike out from the garage and listening to the heavy metal intro to one of the songs on my playlist. 

I hopped on the back and began to peddle through the darkening weather. I felt the small rain droplets hot against my cheeks as I let go of one of my handle bars to pull the hood of my My Chemical Romance hoodie over my chin length hair. 

After five minutes of trying to avoid angry early morning drivers who couldn't be bothered to move when they neared my bike, I had reached the large metal school gates. Their logo was branded across the metal bars, sending shivers down my spine. I stepped off my seat, begining to walk my bike through the school yard, to the bike shed. 

Once it was fully chained up, I made my way to one place I knew no one would be. He music rooms. I genuinly wondered how many teen pregnancies were started in this room. Way too many to be honest, this was a really crap school, but it was free, and we barely have enough money for the bills, let alone some snobby expensive school.

As I reached the room, I pulled the keychain from my back pocket that contained the keys for this door. I had been trusted with it two years ago, the music teachers liked me, I was quiet and got on with my work well. Once I was inside, I pushed the keys into my ukulele case and took out the instrument. 

Retuning it slightly, I strung a few notes, getting back into how to play. I cleared my throat and began playing the first chords of Hallelujah. I hummed the intro, I never properly sung with the songs, not often at least. 

I had nearly gotten to the first chorous when I heard feet patter outside of the door. My head swug up from where my eyes where concentrating on the strings to see what had happened. 

There was a tanned boy staring through the door window at me, a soft pink blush dusted his cheeks. He looked farmiliar, I probably saw him around school at some point.

Before I hand chance to think of anything else, the bell rung, making me jump. He shot a wink at me, stepping away from the window less than a second later. 

I felt a red glow crawling up the sides of my face, tinging at my cheeks. I was still for a moment, smilig softly at the empty window. 

I blinked a few times, forving myself to realise I needed to go. I quickly packed up my instrument, pushing it's box into the deep into the shelves. Swiftly leaving the room, I locked it behind me, dropping the keys into my jean pocket. 

Burrowing my hands deep into my pockets, I made my way to my first lesson, maths. My face returned to it's usual grimace as I approached the door. By the time I was seated at the back of the room, you couldn't tell that anything nice had happened all day. Especially not a hot guy winking at me. It probably was nothing to him anyway, don't read into it. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the tanned boy from earlier with his arm awkwardly wrapped around a shorter figure. She had unaturally white hair and heavily tanned skin, her highlight was so strong it was almost two lines of colour on her cheeks. She was snuggled closely into his side, it almost made me angry for some reason.

"Good morning class. My name is Coran. As it's the first day back I'm not going to plundge you into any difficult mathamatics today." As he twizelled his ginger moustache a wave of sighs was heard.  
"Today we'll be recapping things like significant figure, the Nth term and such. These are all things you've done before and should know by now. I'm trusting that you can go into groups of two by yourselves without any problems, correct?" A simultanious eger nod came from the class, excluding myself. All that meant was I sat alone reading through my book from last year, hoping I made enough notes to get through the lesson. 

"Good, get to it!" Coran sat into his chair, typing at something on his computer screen. 

Pulling my old book from my back pack, I began looking through everything we had done last year. Subconciously, I glanced up, towards the desk where the tanned guy sat. He was looking right back at me, smiling slightly as he stood up and taking a step owards my desk. 

Staring back down at my book I pretended I wasn't looking, only to peek up seconds later. He was being pulled back into his seat by the girl, she seemed to be angry and he almost looked scared to disagree. 

Bitch. 

He shot me a saddened look as he slowly turned to his book. I glared down at my work, why is it the one time anyone might have even spoken to me, they get pulled back by someone else? 

I guess it's just my luck. The amazing luck that barely got me this far in life. I'm genuinly suprised I've not been hit by a car yet on my way to or from school. I kinda wish I would be sometimes, but that's not really something any wants or needs to know about. 

I doodled in the corner of my book for the rest of the lesson, not needing to recap anything. As he bell rang, I shoved the book into my bag, immediatly exiting the room. 

Looking down at my timetable, I saw I now had P.E, I was semi decent at it, I'll be fine.


	2. Chapter 2

Leaving the changing room, I made my way to the sports hall where my class was already sat, fully changed. I moved towards the back, far from anyone else.

"I'm gonna be blunt with this, it's your last year, so we're not going to go through all this safety stuff, you here it almost everyday. All it is, don't use the equiptmeant in a way its not meant to be used, and one new rule this year after last year, two people have to work together incase anything goes wrong. A student last year had half of her hair torn out when no one was there to stop the treadmill." A grimace was seen over all the faces of the people in the room, besides me, I've seen first hand much worse.

"You're old enough to not squabble over partners so go ahead, you have until the end of he lesson in the gym." Everyone immediatly left, rushing to the equiptment in pairs.

I slowly stood up, pulling my hair band from my wrist and dragged my hair into a loose top knot. Tucking the reminance of my frindge behind my ear I made my way to the sit up bench, I didn't bother looking for a partner, no one would go with my anyway. It's not like I could hurt myself on this with or without a partner there.

I hooked my feet around the grip, wrapping my arms over my chest, begining to tense my stomach muscles preparing to sit me up. I pushed myself forward, falling back down slowly, repeating this again and again.

Feeling a sweat break on my forehead, I clenched my jaw, resting my back against the seat for a second. After a moment, I opened my eyes, seeing the tanned boy from earlier leaning over my face, mere millimetres from my lips, his elbows reating either side of my face.

"You're meant to have a partner, you know that right?" He chuckled, smirking at me. I sat up, avoiding his face and ignoring my rosey cheeks.   
"Yeah, I guess." I mumbled, stradling the seat, now facing him. Seeing he was alone a question came into my mind.

"Well, where's your's then?" I questioned, quirking a brow.   
"I was hoping that would be you? The name's Lance." He grinned, leaning against the wall, knocking over some dungbells. This earnt him a disapproving look from the teachers and an eyeroll from me. He awkwardly placed them back, chuckling as his face turned bright pink.

Wait, he wanted to be partners with me? Was he being serious? He couldn't be, could he?

"Uh, sure? I'm Keith by the way." I mumble, a smile widening on his face.   
"What do you wanna do, I'm not too bothered." I say, standing from the bench.

"To be honest, gym is kinda boring, it's just a load of guys sitting in a room together getting sweaty. That's not really my cup of tea." He chuckled, grabbing onto my wrist and leading me from the room.   
"Let's get out of here." He gave me a sly wink before speaking to the teacher.

"We just need to get a drink, we'll be right back, sir." He smiled innocently, he's a damn good lier.   
"Sure, whatever." He sighed, dismissing us with a wave of his hand.

I was shot a mischievious smirk as he pulled me from the hall into the changing rooms where he grabbed a handfull of change from his bag. He was still holding my wrist and palm as we left the changing room.

"Wanna go to the food stall?" He asked, leading me toward the hall it was in.   
"You can get something, I'll be fine." I gave a forced smile as we reached the stand that was open the whole day. A disgruntled looking dinner lady was sat behind it, glaring at the linked hands beside our side.

I immediatly dropped his hand, feeling heat rise up my cheeks as I crossed that arm over my body.   
"Two hot chocolates and a packet of Doritos please." He simles, handing over the money in return for the snacks. I looked at him in confusion as he handed me a cup of hot liquid.

"Wh-what?" I awkwardly chuckled, hoping he was just asking to carry it so he could have two for some reason.  
"Drink, it's freezing. Plus, you look like you need it." He chuckled, dragging me behind the courts to a bench hidden from any prying eyes of teachers.   
"O-oh, thanks..." I smiled weakly, avoiding his eyes.

He sat down on the bench, gesturing for me to sit with him. I did so, edging a bit further away from him, not wanting to make him feel awkward being so close to me.

There was a crinkle from beside me and I turned to see Lance opening the packet of Doritos.   
"You want some?" He asked, pushing the open bag towards me.   
"I'm good, thanks though." I shook my head while speaking. At this he rose an eyebrow, begining to eat into the packet.

I took a small sip of the brown liquid in the cup, wondering when the last time I had hot chocolate was. It had to have been years, I never really realised how much I missed it.

The wind was drafting through the courts, bringing a sweep of leaves flurring past us. I closed my eyes, the cool air tugging at my hair. I know a lot of people hate this time of year for the cold, but the crimson and tangerine leaves are too beautiful for me to _not_ love it. It was quiet for a while, only interrupted but the small rustle of leaves, but it wasn't awkward. It was more peaceful.

I let out a silent sigh as I opened my eyes, immediatly blushing seeing Lance was looking at me.   
"We-we should probably get back, lesson will be over soon and they'll wonder where we are." I mumble, standing watching as his now empty Dorito packet was binned, along with the cup he was drinking from. I threw mine out with his, pretending I had drunk more than a few sips, not wanting to seem ungrateful for the gesture.

We had made it back to the changing rooms in time for the bell to ring just as we had stepped through the doors.   
"I guess I'll see you around then." He smiled, waving as he returned to his area, beginning to get changed as many peoplw gathered into the room.

I grabbed my things and took them to the toilet, not wanting to take my clothes off infront of any of them. The ridicule and bulling was bad enough nearly daily, I didn't need the adding how fat I am to what they use against me.

I was done within seconds, fleeing the room in order to dump my bag into my locker in the next block over. Unlocking it, I pushed aside my cheerleading outfit and somehow made space for it to fit in.

There was only one place I knew no dickheads would be at break. The music rooms were pretty much my home at school.

I entered the music block, immediatly making my way to the one I had the key to. I pushed my key into the red door, clicking the lock and closing it behind me. My ukelele was still here on the shelf, sometimes the cleaning staff would move it to a cupboard and, good god, I don't want to freak out that much ever again.

I opened the box, taking out my instrument, retuning it a bit and got into position. I wrapped my fingers around the neck of it, brushing my finger tips along the strings. I strung three different chords, all sounding off, they were either far too sharp or flat. I let out a deep frustrated sigh, pulling my legs onto the table I was sat on to cross my legs.

I sat the instrument on my lap, plucking at a few of the strings. I tugged the bobble from my hair, putting it back on my wrist. I shook out my hair, feeling my scalp relax. That was probably the only relaxed part of me right now.

Just as I was begining to calm down, the bell rang above my head, sending my brain into panic for a moment. Looking through my timetale, I saw I had English next.

Wow, life got me fucked.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N
> 
> Heyy, so excues that this was boring, and shobby, and not put together well, but I'm sick right now so please excuse any mistakes. Also, im so sorry, I thought I updated this ages ago anf I didn't so you're gettig 2 chapters at once.
> 
> \- Tyler xxx


	3. Chapter 3

Keiths POV 

Want to know the only thing I could ever consider even the slightest bit good about going back to school after the summer? 

We go back on a Wednesday. We weren't in school for the first half of the week. Meaning, after today ended we only had two more days, which was still quite long when I think about it. It was better than a whole week I guess. 

I nearly fell out of my seat as the final bell of the day rang, sending my heart rate flying through the roof. I packed my books away, quickly standing and leaving the geography room along with the rest of my class. 

I spead my way to the music room to grab my ukulele before immediatly returning to my locker to grab my kit. The words scribbled on the metal where in permenant marker, there was little I could do about them.

Emo!

Freak!

Kill yourself!

Jump off a bridge!

Drink bleach!

Fat fucker!

The small amount I could do was rub at them with an alcohol wipe, forcing them to fade slightly. They might be erased from the locker, but not from my mind, they never leave there. 

My feet dragged me towards the changing rooms, the weight of both my bags and an instrument waying me down. 

There where already a few people in here getting changed as I arrived. I quickly placed my things down in a secluded corner, these guys where all getting ready for football practice, I was getting changed for the people who were cheering them on. I joined cheerleading a year or so back when Shiro had made me join a club. It was either this or chess club, can you see now why I picked this?

I swapped my normal clothes for the uniform, quickly packing away my things and attempting to walk from the room unnoticed. No such luck. 

As I walked past the other guys, I got mock wolf whistles, sniggers, and jeers hurled my way. They all were doing it.  
I just kept my head down, in an attempt to ignore them. I was nearly out of the door when I heard someone speak up. 

"Oi, the lot of you, shut the fuck up!" I glanced up to see Lance giving me a small smile as the room fell almost entirely silent. I paused for a moment to shoot him a genuine smile before continuing to leave as the noise slowly increased again. 

I reached the pitch, tying my hair up into a thick messy bun, leaving my frindge drooping over my forehead. There was a small training area for us between the actual playing field and the stands, a few of the cheerleaders where already gathering there, begining their stretches. 

"Hey, Keith." Pidge greeted standing up properly to clasp their hands together behind their back.   
"Hey." I mumbled, pulling a leg up besides my hip, relaxing the muscles in my thigh. I repeated that with my other leg and began my other stretches. Rolling my neck from side to side, I caught a glimpse of Lance wandering across the field towards his team. Our eyes met for a moment before I immediatly snapped my head back infront of me, causing it to crack unnaturally. 

"Jesus Keith, be careful." Shay giggled a bit at the sound my neck made. I chuckled awkwardly back as the girl with white hair from earlier in maths, Allura, approached our group. Her skirt and top was barely covering anything, as usual. Not that I could really talk though, the shorts I was wearing were hardly more than a tight piece of spandex. At this thought, I tugged them down slightly lower on my thigh. 

I finished my warm ups as Allura began speaking to us all.

"Okay, all we'll be doing today is going through what we already know, to get back into the sport!" Her bright white beams where completely fake, closing her eyes was a step too far. She clasped her hands together as she spoke seeming to enjoy life way too much for my liking. I mean damn it's the first day back, why is she so happy?

"So, who were the flyers last year?" She smiled, looking through the small flock of us. Pidge and a few girls I recognised raised their hands. 

"Well, Pidge, I'm not sure you could be anything other than a flyer, but Hannah, Chloe, you guys can try switching parts." She dismissed them with a wave of her hand, watching as their faces slowly dissovled into saddness. She had said they should change roles, but what she actually meant was that they'd gained weight over the summer. 

She was a bitch. I knew it, she knew it, everyone else knew it too. 

"Keith, you and me will be switching with them." She spoke at me in complete confidence, as though I'd go along with it without a prolem.  
"What? No. No, I'm happy with being support." I state back at her, my expression set in stone. I watched as her complection morphed to one of a confusion, has no one ever told her no? 

"Excuse me?" She gave a dry chuckle as she spoke. Besides me, Pidge was frantically staring at me, urging for me to stop. Like shit I was giving up that easily.  
"I said no, I'm not doing it." I raise an eyebrow at her, clenching my jaw after speaking. 

"Oh, I don't think you get it, you are a flyer now, you don't have that choice. Do not speak back to me again." She shot me a maddened giggle, the idea of someone not agreeing with her being foreign. I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms and glaring at her. The other girls were staring at me as though I wear insane, being a flyer meant you were slim and that you were agile enough to do the tricks. But I wasn't any of those things, I was chunky, and discusting, barely able to do anything right, let alone be thrown into the air to do some trick. 

"Okay, girls, and whatever else, let's get to it!" She smiled as she spoke ina condecing tone that was obviously directed at me and Pidge. We both silently groaned at one another as she began trying to get us in order.   
The first lesson back is always the worst, sport wasn't an acception.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N 
> 
> Heyy, so yes, it has been years but I'm back and I hope you liked it, ik its shit don't judge but ill try and upload more often, cya xx
> 
> \- Tyler xxx

**Author's Note:**

> A/N 
> 
> Hey, sorry if this chapters kind of rough, it's the first but it'll get better promise xx
> 
> \- Tyler xx


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